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Sunday, June 8, 2014

Fresh allegations by a British Sunday paper of Qatari
wrongdoing in its successful bid to clinch the hosting of the 2022 World Cup have
increased pressure for transparency by the Gulf state whose flat denials ring
hollow against the backdrop of past assertions of some of its officials. They
also increase pressure on governing world soccer body FIFA to investigate the
claims amid suggestions that its independent investigator will complete his
report without a full review of millions of documents The Sunday Times say it
has obtained.

The paper said on Sunday in a
second report in as many weeks that disgraced former FIFA executive committee
member and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohammed Bin Hammam, a
Qatari national with past close ties to his country’s leadership, had employed the
Gulf state’s energy wealth to further the Qatari bid. The paper reported last
week that Mr. Bin Hammam, who two years ago was banned for life by FIFA from
involvement in professional soccer because of alleged ‘conflicts of interest,’
had also wooed football executives from Africa and Oceania with gifts, junkets
and cash hand-outs.

To be fair, it remains unclear whether the latest allegations
by The Sunday Times constitute a legal violation of FIFA’s notoriously loose
rules and regulations that govern World Cup bids. FIFA Secretary General Jerome
Valcke in a letter to bidders dated five months before the FIFA executive committee
meeting that awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar
warned bidders that “according to Clause 11.2 on the rules of conduct, amongst
others, the Member Associations and Bid Committees shall refrain from attempting
to influence members of the FIFA Executive Committee or any other FIFA
officials in particular by offering benefits for any specific behaviour.” Mr.
Valcke announced a new policy according to which bidders were obliged to report
all direct or indirect contacts with members of the FIFA executive committee or
their national soccer associations.

Former New York prosecutor Michael Garcia who has spent the
past two years as independent FIFA investigator probing the Qatari bid is under
pressure from Mr. Valcke to tentatively report his findings before the opening
of this year’s World Cup in Brazil at the end of this week. Japan’s Sony
Corporation, worried about the reputational damage it could suffer as a sponsor
of the World Cup, appears to want to thwart that by calling for an investigation
of The Sunday Times’ findings.

Mr. Valcke’s failure to include in his policy announcement
World Cup-related contacts by officials who are not formal members of a bid
committee raises questions given the close ties that FIFA and its members maintain
with political leaders and elites and the group’s insistence on the fiction that
politics and sports are separate. Moreover, FIFA president Sepp Blatter suggested
three years ago that the group was fast and loose in enforcement of its rules
when he downplayed allegations of a vote swap between Qatar and Spain and Portugal
who were bidding jointly for the 2018 World Cup.

In its latest revelations, The Sunday Times reported that
Mr. Bin Hammam had facilitated a meeting between an aide to controversial Thai
Football Association president and FIFA executive member Worawi Makudi, who has
faced down past charges of corruption, and a Qatari deputy prime minister as
well as the head of Qatar gas at a time that the Southeast Asian nation was
seeking to renegotiate a liquefied gas deal.

The paper further asserted that Qatar and Russia had
discussed joint gas projects two days after Mr. Bin Hammam had visited Moscow to
talk about cooperation in sports. It said that Mr. Bin Hammam had also arranged
a meeting between the Qatari bid committee and Michel Platini, the head of European
soccer federation UEFA, a FIFA executive committee member and a potential
challenger to Mr. Blatter in next year’s FIFA presidential election. Mr. Platini’s
son is reportedly affiliated to a Qatari state-owned sports entity. Mr. Platini
has denied reports that he discussed the Qatari bid with Mr. Bin Hammam as well
as any connection between his son’s job and his vote in favour of Qatar in the
FIFA executive committee. He said a meeting with Mr. Bin Hammam reported by The
Daily Telegraph had focused on the 2011 FIFA presidential election.

It was not always clear from The Sunday Times’ reporting whether
Mr. Bin Hammam’s efforts were always related to the Qatari bid or also to his
own effort to challenge Mr. Blatter in the group’s 2011 presidential election.
Mr. Bin Hammam’s downfall as the most senior Qatari in world soccer governance
began with allegations that he had sought to buy the votes of Caribbean
officials for his presidential bid. Mr. Bin Hammam, who was forced to withdraw
his presidential bid, has since been at the centre of the worst scandal in
soccer history that has percolated for close to four years.

Qatar has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has insisted
that Mr. Bin Hammam was not involved in its bid to host the World Cup that has
been mired in controversy since its awarding. It has however refrained so far
from providing transparency about its bid campaign that benefitted from a budget
far larger than that of its competitors, the United States, Australia, South
Korea and Japan. It has also yet to provide evidence for its assertion that Mr.
Bin Hammam was not associated with its World Cup bid.

Qatar has a vested interest in squaring the circle given the
fact that the controversy puts at risk the enormous investment it has made in a
soft power approach to its security and defence policy that recognizes that
despite its wealth it will never have the military power to defend itself
against potential external threats. The success of Qatar’s soft power rests on
its ability to project itself as a good and responsible member of the international
community.

In many ways it has succeeded in doing so with a world class
airline that catapulted Doha into a transportation hub connecting continents, a
global television network despite controversy over its perceived support of
Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, high profile commercial and arts
investments, and a fast paced diplomacy geared towards mediation like in this
month’s exchange of an American soldier captured in Afghanistan for five
Taliban members held in Guantanamo Bay.

All of that could be put at risk by the persistent allegations
of wrongdoing in the World Cup. With statements at the time of the bid by Qatari
officials praising Mr. Bin Hammam’s role and statements by Mr. Bin Hammam
himself that were not denied by Qatar that he was working on behalf of his country’s
bid, Qatar will have to do substantially more to avert what is becoming not
only a public relations fiasco but could pose the most serious threat yet to retaining
its right to host the World Cup.

The chairman of the Qatar 2022 bid committee, Sheikh
Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, a brother of Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim
bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who was crown prince at the time of the Qatari
bid, described in November 2010 in an interview with World Football
Insider barely a month before the FIFA executive committee vote Mr. Bin Hammam
as the bid’s “biggest asset” and a mentor of his team.

In an apparent reference to Mr. Valcke’s policy announcement,
Sheikh Mohammed said: “When it comes to executive committee members we don’t
really get involved in what happens inside the committee because FIFA is very
strict. But outside the executive committee and within the bid itself Mohamed
Bin Hammam has been a very good mentor to us. He’s been very helpful in
advising us how to go about with our messaging and can have the biggest impact.
He’s always been advising us and always been by our side. He’s definitely our
biggest asset in the bid.”

Writing on his blog at about the same time, Mr. Bin Hammam,
in contradiction to later suggestions by Qatari officials that the soccer
official opposed his nation’s bid because it could undermine his FIFA presidential
aspirations, strongly endorsed the Qatari World Cup effort. “Qatar is the
representative of the people occupying the area between Mauritania in the
Atlantic, to Aden in the Red Sea; and the land of more than 350 million
people,” Mr. Bin Hammam wrote.

He said that “Qatar dreams that the power of football will
enhance and consolidate the value of tolerance, respect, friendship and peace
among us, the people of the Middle East” and suggested that Qatar’s role as a
mediator in regional conflicts would be enhanced by winning the hosting of the
World Cup.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological
University. He is also co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute
for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same
title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile